Amazon blitzed past Wall Street’s high hopes when it reported its first quarter financials on Thursday, with the e-commerce giant more than doubling earnings projections.
After markets closed on Thursday, Amazon reported revenue of $51.04 billion and earnings of $3.27 cents a share for the three months ended on March 31. Analysts had projected $49.78 billion in revenue and earnings of $1.26 cents a share on average.
Amazon had a 43 percent year-over-year increase in sales, and its earnings more than doubled from the $724 million it reported during the first quarter of 2017. The tech juggernaut posted its 12th straight quarterly profit, pulling in $1.6 billion in net income.
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Chief Executive Jeff Bezos pointed to the company’s cloud business, Amazon Web Services, in his statement accompanying earnings. AWS hauled in $5.4 billion in sales during the quarter, a 49 percent-year-over-year increase.
“AWS had the unusual advantage of a seven-year head start before facing like-minded competition, and the team has never slowed down,” said Bezos. “As a result, the AWS services are by far the most evolved and most functionality-rich. AWS lets developers do more and be nimbler, and it continues to get even better every day. That’s why you’re seeing this remarkable acceleration in AWS growth, now for two quarters in a row. A huge thank you to all our AWS customers, and you can be sure we’ll keep working hard for you.”
Investors quickly gave Amazon a vote of confidence, with its shares running 7 percent to hit a new all-time high above $1,630 a share in after-hours trading. Amazon had already been on a breakneck pace this year, with its shares climbing nearly 30 percent to $1,511 a share since the start of 2018.
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The company will hold a call at 5:30 p.m. ET to discuss its earnings.
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